Cleantech and Environmental News – Latest Headlines

European Union Member States are showing mixed progress towards three climate and energy targets for 2020, even though the EU as a whole could reduce greenhouse gases emissions by 21% in 2020 with the set of national measures already adopted. These findings come from new European Environment Agency (EEA) assessments.

In a time when Australia's liquid transport fuel supplies are declining and our transport needs are growing, a research partnership between Australia and India could provide a solution to a number of energy concerns and ultimately reduce the reliance of both countries on imported fuels.

The seesaw variability of global temperatures often engenders debate over how seriously we should take climate change. But within 35 years, even the lowest monthly dips in temperatures will be hotter than we've experienced in the past 150 years, according to a new and massive analysis of all climate models. The tropics will be the first to exceed the limits of historical extremes and experience an unabated heat wave that threatens biodiversity and heavily populated countries with the fewest resources to adapt.

Scientists have engineered yeast to consume acetic acid, a previously unwanted byproduct of the process of converting plant leaves, stems and other tissues into biofuels. The innovation increases ethanol yield from lignocellulosic sources by about 10 percent.

A*STAR's Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences inked a Memorandum of Understanding with the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, to promote joint research and collaboration in the field of sustainable chemicals - specifically in biomass-to-chemicals research.

The mitigation of climate change can be framed as a problem of risk management on a global scale. Avoiding dangerous interference with ecosystems and human society calls for a global climate policy, which will translate a selected climatic target into economic incentives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

An EU-funded research project, 'European carbon dioxide capture and storage laboratory infrastructure' (ECCSEL), joined leading research institutes from across Europe to prepare the research infrastructure needed to promote widespread CCS adoption.